Friday, July 20, 2012

On July 20, 1969, Apollo 11 landed on the moon. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were the first human beings to ever set foot anywhere other than Mother Earth. I was 13 years old and watched it happen. This is what it looked like.

Four decades later, we have an International Space Station. I want to go to there.

In the next year or two, Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic will start carrying well heeled cash customers on sub-orbital joy rides like this.

This is the future of near-earth orbital transportation of people and cargo..

These audacious bastards plan to land their spacecraft on a landing pad using their own rockets! Like God intended.

This should be their theme song and this video should be played before every launch.

Elon Musk will be to Space Exploration what Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were to personal computing. Oh, and he will also be what Thomas Edison was to electricity and Henry Ford was to transportation.

A newly formed company called Planetary Resources has announced plans to start mining asteroids for natural resources.

All of these commercial for profit efforts will allow NASA to push the envelope and extend our presence in our Solar System.

Our future, our only hope for survival and purpose, is Out There. If we stay here, we will all die and become a meaningless biological blip unworthy of notice.

2 comments:

However I fear we have left it late and the world we have made will consume us.

Perhaps the next next cycle of civilizations will be smarter, asuming any survive. But I doubt it; someone always finds a a 'religious' document in the ruins and starts the whole downward spiral over again.